The Project:

The use of career pathway system development is a new mechanism for education to employment alignment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Struggling economies and underfunded schools mean that public resources need to be managed effectively and business partners need to be encouraged to play a meaningful role in developing a talent pipeline.

EdSystems Role:

EdSystems has worked with project partners to develop a model for successful career pathway implementation in both the agriculture and healthcare fields in Liberia. We coordinated with business, non-profit, and public sector leaders to host a successful launch of Liberia Career Pathways, sponsored by the Vice President of Liberia. We also coordinated a visit to Chicago by the Vice President where he met with industry and education leaders to learn from the Illinois model. In April 2016 we partnered with Chicago Global Health Alliance and Liberia Career Pathways to host a successful cross-sector, post-Ebola conference on the importance of Career Pathways in Healthcare. We are now working with these same partners to implement a career awareness and exploration program and we are in the planning stages to develop a training program for biomedical equipment technicians — an area of high need. In Tanzania we are partnering with Tanzania Development Support, based in DeKalb, and UMABU, a local NGO to implement a Career Pathways program in the Mara Region in Tanzania. In 2015 we conducted field analysis to identify high-growth sectors and their alignment with the Tanzanian education system. In 2016 we conducted a cross-sector training workshop in partnership with 4-H Tanzania on strategies to implement Career Pathways tied to local economic development needs. A Career Pathways pilot program using the 4-H model is now underway in four schools in the region.